Tag Archives: protestantism

‘The central question political scientist Mark R. Royce addresses in his book, The Political Theology of European Integration: Comparing the Influence of Religious Histories on European Policies, is whether the process of European integration as it has developed since the Second World War, and continues to develop as a result of issues such as Brexit, is also influenced by political theological considerations. He defines “political theology” as “the authoritative application of sacred ideas to public policies and discourses” (p. 1). In the context of Royce’s study, which focuses on 17 Western European countries, in particular Roman Catholicism and the Lutheran, Calvinist, and Anglican forms of Protestantism are relevant.’

The conference was organized by the Association of Reformational Philosophy (ARP) in cooperation with the Evangelische Theologische Faculteit of Leuven (ETF): ‘ARP and ETF welcome contributions from philosophers and theologians as well as from scholars in other disciplines who are seriously engaged in dialogue between Christianity and key figures (or central insights or paradigms) within their own discipline and context, wherever in the world this may be.

The Association of Reformational Philosophy (ARP) has its roots in the 16th century Reformation and its direct origin in the 19th neo-Calvinist revival (in which Abraham Kuyper was a pivotal figure). One of the goals of the ARP is ‘to contribute to the deepening of philosophical insight in created reality, and to make these insights fruitful for academic studies and for society’. Key founding fathers of the movement were the Dutch philosophers Herman Dooyeweerd and Dirk Vollenhoven. The movement has grown, and is today globally engaged in academic dialogue between Christianity and the contemporary world, and its animating intellectual, political and economic ideas and leaders. It does so in the expectation that Christianity has important and timely insights to offer.

The Evangelische Theologische Faculteit (ETF) in Leuven, Belgium, has developed into an important European education and research center for Christian theology that seeks relevance to the contemporary world and its concerns. In ETF’s international master’s and doctoral program, students and professors from a wide variety of cultural and denominational backgrounds come from all over the world to engage in stimulating dialogue.

This conference is co-organized with the Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies (WMCES); the political foundation and official think tank of the European People’s Party. And the Christian Political Foundation for Europe (CPFE); the political foundation for the European Christian Political Movement (ECPM).’

My own contribution was entitled: ‘Christianity and the Future of Religious Freedom’. The abstract reads as follows:

The central point a forthcoming dissertation on the legal conception of ‘religion’ aims to make, is that the concept of religion employed by courts in the West is not as ‘transhistorical and transcultural’ as is sometimes tacitly assumed but instead is heavily influenced by Christianity in general and Protestantism in particular. As a result, the protection the right to freedom of religion or belief currently provides to, for example, Islam and Judaism is too limited.

I do not consider the thesis that the right to freedom of religion or belief may have a strong relationship to in particular the Christian heritage in itself to be very surprising. It would, to the contrary, be quite a sensation to somehow discover that the legal conception of religion in the West had not been influenced by Christianity.Whether the arguably more particularly Protestant influence is as strong as the author assumes, is a different matter. It could well be argued that definitions employed in this manuscript and other recent literature on the topic, such as ‘the view that religion denotes a sphere of life separate and distinct from all others, and that this sphere is largely private and not public, voluntary and not compulsory’, represent the very opposite of what Protestantism has historically stood for.

The proposed paper will argue that, to the contrary, Christianity in general, and Protestantism in particular, have eventually given rise to a generous interpretation of the right to freedom of religion or belief. Such a generous interpretation suggests first of all that, because spirituality is the keystone of human identity, this right occupies a special place in the universe of rights. Secondly, it implies that religious belief cannot be separated from religious practice. Thirdly, the right to freedom of religion or belief applies to all religions and also to people who do not adhere to a particular religion. Fourthly, the associational and institutional dimensions of the right are important, not just with respect to religious organizations, but also with respect to civil society organizations more generally. A fifth element of a generous religious freedom conception holds that, although not sacred or inviolable, the bar to interference regarding the family as the fundamental social unit is relatively high. The sixth element is that human dignity can well serve as the underlying foundation of the right, as it can be subscribed to by different religious and other traditions. A seventh and final element is that equality does not necessarily imply identical treatment.

A generous approach to the right to freedom of religion or belief does not so much imply maximal but rather optimal religious freedom. Although the limits to the right can to a certain extent differ from place to place, and from time to time, they have historically by and large been determined by the same universal, transcendent truths which also sustain constitutional democracy more generally. This can be regarded as a major – though not exclusive – potential contribution of Christianity also to the future of Western and indeed world civilization.

‘The Cardiff Festival of Law and Religion on May 5th and 6th at Cardiff University celebrates the twenty-fifth anniversary of the LLM in Canon Law at Cardiff University, the first degree of its type in a British University since the Reformation.

A number of events are being held to reflect upon how the study of Law and Religion has developed over the last twenty-five years and the likely future trajectory. This includes the 2016 Law and Religion Scholars Network (LARSN) Conference, a keynote address by Professor David Little, a celebratory dinner and the launch of F Cranmer, M Hill, C Kenny and R Sandberg (ed) The Confluence of Law and Religion: Interdisciplinary Reflections on the Work of Norman Doe (Cambridge University Press, 2016).’

My own presentation was entitled: ‘The “New Critics of Religious Freedom” and the Inspiration they Unintentionally Provide’.

The summary of the paper reads as follows:

The ‘New Critics of Religious Freedom’ have become increasingly vocal of late. The first part of the paper will summarise their main criticisms, some of which contain a considerable amount of truth, such as that the right to freedom of religion or belief has historically been heavily influenced by Christianity in general and Protestantism in particular.

The second part of the paper will argue that at first sight there also appears to be one major downside to the criticisms. As it turns out to be hardly possible to isolate the right to freedom of religion or belief from the general idea of a democratic constitutional state, what the critics are really questioning is the current state of Western liberal democracy as a whole.

The third part of the paper will propose that the reason for this close connection between religious freedom and the democratic constitutional state lies in the fact that the latter has clearly been influenced by Christianity as well. Still, the new critics of religious freedom may on closer inspection also serve as a source of inspiration for a necessary, theologically driven reform of some of the central tenets of liberal democracy as it has developed in recent decades.

‘Registration is now open for the Cardiff Festival of Law and Religion on May 5th and 6th at Cardiff University. This celebrates the twenty-fifth anniversary of the LLM in Canon Law at Cardiff University, the first degree of its type in a British University since the Reformation.

A number of events are being held to reflect upon how the study of Law and Religion has developed over the last twenty-five years and the likely future trajectory. This includes the 2016 Law and Religion Scholars Network (LARSN) Conference, a keynote address by Professor David Little, a celebratory dinner and the launch of F Cranmer, M Hill, C Kenny and R Sandberg (ed) The Confluence of Law and Religion: Interdisciplinary Reflections on the Work of Norman Doe (Cambridge University Press, 2016).’

The paper I will be presenting is entitled: ‘The “New Critics of Religious Freedom” and the Inspiration they Unintentionally Provide’:

The ‘New Critics of Religious Freedom’ have become increasingly vocal of late. The first part of the proposed paper will summarise their main criticisms, some of which contain a considerable amount of truth, such as that the right to freedom of religion or belief has historically been heavily influenced by Christianity in general and Protestantism in particular.

The second part of the paper will argue that at first sight there also appears to be one major downside to the criticisms. As it turns out to be hardly possible to isolate the right to freedom of religion or belief from the general idea of a democratic constitutional state, what the critics are really questioning is the current state of Western liberal democracy as a whole.

The third part of the paper will propose that the reason for this close connection between religious freedom and the democratic constitutional state lies in the fact that the latter has clearly been influenced by Christianity as well. Still, the new critics of religious freedom may on closer inspection also serve as a source of inspiration for a necessary, theologically driven reform of the central tenets of liberal democracy as it has developed in recent decades.

‘The regional contributions from Africa and Asia show how the old European made denominational differences fade in the light of African Instituted Churches or Pentecostalism. Reshaping Protestantism is not a backward oriented project of reconstructing the original but makes use of the inner protestant pluralism to cope with globalization and changing religious landscapes. Who reads through the different articles can only come to the conclusion: Yes, there is a contribution to be expected from mainline Protestantism in all its variety.’

My own contribution to the volume is entitled ‘Protestantism, Globalization, and the Democratic Constitutional State’. You can download it here:

‘In this article I want to explore whether Calvinism has the potential to once again act as a force toward cultural liberty in today’s world, and if so, to what extent. Because religion is of profound importance to one’s identity, I will thereby focus on religious liberty. In paragraph two I will, first of all, indicate what the pluralist approach to constitutional democracy is about, that neo-Calvinists have developed during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Paragraphs three and four will then look at the prospects for this approach in the Netherlands, where it originated, and in other cultural contexts, respectively. I will round up with a conclusion in which I will refer to Alister E. McGrath’s thesis about the end of mainline Protestantism.

About my blog

I am both a lawyer and political scientist by training. From early on I have been fascinated by crossing (sub)disciplinary boundaries. Thus, while I was still teaching at the Department of Political Science, I collaborated with constitutional lawyers in the field of Dutch government and politics. I also spent a sabbatical at the Center for European Studies at Harvard University, USA. After my transfer to the Law Faculty, I developed a course in Comparative Constitutional Law, thereby once again attempting to bridge the gap with constitutional politics. I also co-directed book projects on political parties and public law (2014) and the separation of powers (2015) respectively.
Recently, I have been able to capitalize on the fact that I thrive in interdisciplinary and international settings even further. In 2013 a research proposal I co-authored with historian James Kennedy as principal applicant, entitled ‘Religion Renegotiated: Faith-Based Organizations and the State in the Netherlands since the 1960s', was granted a major subsidy by the Dutch Association for Scientific Research (NWO). In 2014 I was awarded a Research Fellowship in Legal Studies at the Center of Theological Inquiry (CTI) at Princeton University, USA, which enabled me to be in full-time residence at CTI for the academic year 2014-2015. Since 2015, I am a member of the editorial board of the Tijdschrift voor Religie, Recht en Beleid (Journal for Religion, Law and Policy).
Throughout my professional career my passion has been the question of how constitutional democracies can be designed in order to meet the demands of religiously and otherwise divided societies. My PhD thesis already dealt with the origins of the Dutch Christian Democratic party, whose predecessors were major architects of the pluriform democracy which has characterized the Netherlands during most of the 20th century. A new book, entitled 'Constitutionalism, Democracy and Religious Freedom. To Be Fully Human' (Routledge), is now published.

‘The International Center for Law and Religion Studies (ICLRS) is honored to announce the distinguished keynote speaker for the 24th Annual International Law and Religion Symposium — “Religion and Religious Freedom in a Changing World” — to be held 1-4 … Continue reading →

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‘The central question political scientist Mark R. Royce addresses in his book, The Political Theology of European Integration: Comparing the Influence of Religious Histories on European Policies, is whether the process of European integration as it has developed since the … Continue reading →

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Just five of the speakers, making this such a very worthwhile event to attend: – Russell Moore, President of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention – Daniel Mark, Chairman of the United States Commission on … Continue reading →

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Source: CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=240138 This week I will be attending the 2017 Acton University Conference, at DeVos Place, Grand Rapids, Michigan. Acton University ‘is a unique, four-day exploration of the intellectual foundations of a free society. Guided by a … Continue reading →